Ace sighs, “The only problem with magical mining is the fact that it doubles the difficulty of advancing. Not only do you need to train the mining skill, but your magical skill as well. Though that is for the future. Right now I would really like to learn how many ore deposits there actually are and maybe find out if there is a new floor. With a death the possibility is there.”
The others agree with him and the group moves on. Up and down stairs, back and forth as they stumble into one dead end after another they make their way around the level in a clockwise direction. Jack wonders at one point if the floor always goes clockwise, but Susan smacks that down. She hadn’t been paying too much attention to the new layouts every day, but that sort of thing would have shown up.
This is a tedious bit of exploration for the group. Especially when in just hours it will all be made worthless. Of course they are quite unlucky with today’s layout. Any other day they would have found the entrance to the next floor already. Still, it does mean they are doing about the closest thing to a full clear the floor will probably see anytime soon.
Now the group is on their fourth encounter with the kobolds on the floor. And last though they don’t know that yet. While neither of the previous couple encounters with them has been as tough as the first, it still hasn’t been an easy thing. If the lost cost fallacy hadn’t sunk its claws into them, they would have likely turned around and let the other team of founders finish the exploration.
The fight is joined much like the first with Ruby throwing her ribbon bombs into the mine area. With experience though, she does a better job of choosing targets and the earth mage kobold dies. It was the only enemy to die, mind you, with only a couple goats injured. However, that one death is worth any two or three other deaths.
The kobolds already down their mage are forced into a corner as without guidance the earthen cow lacks the foresight to raise a stone wall. The goatherd orders the goats into a defensive line. A relatively successful maneuver if it wasn’t for the fact that Susan decapitates it a few moments later and the goats all fall back, choosing to defend each other rather than the other monsters.
This leaves the two miners completely open and shortly after completely dead. Soon enough the goats join them, once again leaving the earthen cow alone to face the brunt of six of the more powerful humans on the entire planet. Yeah, that doesn’t end well for it.
Fight over, Ruby looks off to the side and laughs, “Hey look, I think I can just make out a portal down that stairway. Just the edge, but the glow is hard to mistake.”
The others ignore her though, as an even more shocking event is happening. Not one, not two, but three loot drops. Unbeknownst to them, while a lot of the loot was hanging on the edge of dropping, nothing was really ready. Only the fact they had to put so much effort into searching the entire floor tipped these last three things over the edge.
Ace looks over the options and shrugs, “I could use a new hat so I’ll take a goat. Ruby, you take the other goat. I don’t want the back line to be taken out by a few well placed clubs to the dome. And I guess that leaves Susan to take whatever that slinger kobold has.”
Susan shrugs and doesn’t waste any time grabbing a good quality sling out of her spiral. Ruby on the other hand is a little hesitant. The helmet Og had pulled wasn’t exactly her style. In the end, though, she grabs her reward. Though the magic of loot drops once again proves it isn’t some dead function.
Instead of a normal helmet design, her leather helmet is clearly designed to match her tastes. The spiked horns form more of a circlet around her head, and the design itself takes into account things like her hair.
After Ace sees everyone else has their own stuff he reaches in to pull out his own helmet. Or that was the plant. But whatever is in the loot spiral definitely does not feel like a helmet. Instead, he pulls out a bag made of some form of near black leather. Fit perfectly for him the bag looks like one of those single strap backpacks with a bronze buckle embossed with the image of a goat’s profile.
Sammy laughs, “I guess you can technically put that on your head! Though I don’t know how much use a masterwork bag will be.”
Ruby on the other hand has a much more serious look on her face. While it has faded now, the bag was releasing a steady stream of magical power when first taken out of the loot spiral. “I think that might be a magic item. And not only that, but it has some kind of function which makes it so I can’t detect its magical activity anymore.”
Ace frowns, he hadn’t minded getting a bag but if it was magical that threw a wrench in the works. And one peak inside proves Ruby’s guess as the inside is so dark he can’t see the edges.
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He turns to Jack, “Let me have a few chunks of ore. I want to see what happens when we put something in it, but I don’t want to risk anything too important.”
As Jack hands the ore over, Og is practically vibrating. “That has to be a bag of holding! I guess technically if it eats the item instead of storing it, the bag would be of the devouring sort, but I doubt one of those would be dropped this early on. That thing is going to be bigger on the inside than the outside. A classic bit of adventuring kit not only in our rpgs but the greater universe as a whole.”
Ace tosses chunk of ore after chunk of ore into the bag. Soon enough the bag fills up, though much later than would be expected for a bag of this size. Ace hefts it a couple of times before nodding. “Definitely a bag of holding. Not sure of what type exactly, except it nullifies some, though not all the weight. Guess we will have to stick some milk in it and see if it goes bad. While I would love it if the bad did preserve food I highly doubt it.”
Susan nods, “I can see a dungeon that has a dimensional tear as the entrance getting a shortcut to dimensional shenanigans, but I draw the line at time manipulation.”
Og sighs, “A shame too. It would be amazing if we had some sort of time dilation going on here. Being able to dive for weeks in the span of an afternoon would be great.”
Ruby shakes her head, “While that nonsense sounds cool I’m against it personally. If your body still lives through it all, then what is the point? All it sounds like is a good way to burn up your life and have your loved one’s watch you age in fast forward.”
Og shrugs, “I guess most of the stories I read with it involved generally also had the power gained be able to offset or even elongate the user’s lifespan.”
Ace shrugs the bag onto his shoulder and yawns. “Don’t forget, we also get that nice and juicy life extension here. The more power you have, the longer your lifespan.”
Susan smiles, “And Doctor is really annoyed it came so late for him!”
Og frowns, “Why would he be annoyed about it? More years is more years.”
Susan shakes her head, “It doesn’t quite work like that. Let’s say you had a lifespan of a hundred years. Reasonable enough for someone to live that long pre-system. Let’s say there was a point where would let a person live a hundred more years. Most are going to look at that and think what is happening is the added power has simply added 100 years to the person’s lifespan.”
“That is not how it works. Rather, your lifespan is a set amount. So being able to live to 200 doesn’t actually mean your lifespan has increased to 200. What has happened is you’ve gotten more efficient at using your lifespan. So if you were 50 before that increase you would have still used up 50 of your lifespan even though you’re now using half as much. From 50 years left to 100 is still a decent haul, but only puts you at 150 years of life.”
“The only catch to this is growing up. That isn’t counted in quite the same way and if you can extend your lifespan before fully grown you get the full effect. So someone like you could live to the full 200 of that example. Doctor on the other hand is not so lucky. Same with me and my husband of course, but we have a bit of a leg up on the Doctor as our prior training still counts from what we can tell.”
“Now that there are supernatural energies to support us we probably already have a bit of an extended lifespan. I’m actually willing to bet there are some old monks and sages out there that experienced a facelift with the coming of the system. Magic is just weird like that.”
Ace coughs, “While interesting, we do have proof of a new floor just down that stairway over there. How about we go check it out?”
Susan doesn’t have much else to say, so the group continues to the portal. They glance around a bit but find nothing, and Jack laughs. “I guess there isn’t some sort of guardian to keep us out this time. I bet if we get lucky there could be a straight shot from the entrance to the exit.”
Ace shrugs, “We can only wait on that. For now, though, there is a new floor to explore. I don’t want to lay down the law, but I’m feeling a bit tired. The fights were not exhausting. It is just that we ran through most of the dungeon. I say we head through, maybe fight the first group, and then head back to the surface. While disappointing that we will be leaving the discovery to Jim’s team we are carrying literal rocks.”
Jack laughs again, “We wouldn’t bother carrying just rocks. This is some fine copper ore that I’m hauling around. Plus, you have that pack! Just that alone has lifted quite a load off my shoulders.”
Ace shakes his head, “If anything the fact it is ore makes it worse. Last time I checked, metal was heavier than stone. At least then the stone that mine was made of.”
Ruby nods her head, “I agree with Ace on this. Jim can have the honor of exploring what is literally a death trap. I wouldn’t mind pushing harder if we weren’t all so tired. Dealing with those fools from upriver was stressful.”
After that everyone besides Jack and Sammy side with Ace’s plan and so they go through the portal. On the other side, the group is shocked as a whole. Sammy taps the floor with her foot and sighs, “What happened to the nice green carpet? All this rock will be horrible to walk around on.”
Jack nods, “And it will be that much easier to get tripped up. Without the dirt to smooth over the ground’s imperfections, you can really tell how rough the stone is. At least there doesn’t seem to be any loss debris either.”
Og shakes his head, “Speak for yourself. I was hopeful when I first saw the floor. Previous I would need to scrounge for ammo. Seeing all the naked stone gave me hope only for it to be torn away. Without pebbles, I can’t exactly act like I have infinite ammo to play around with.”